Being Runa and appreciating it!

I think everybody struggle with who they are in one way or another, negatively or positively. We can't help it because we are living in a world that is forever 'telling' us what we should be. Look at the terrible, terrible obsession we have with the body perfect image culture. Everything is telling us to strive for the 'acceptable' image and those of us who are born quite average in every aspects will definitely feel the sting more than anyone else, that is if we are not learning to be secure within ourselves.

When it comes to living cross-culturally there's also its own set of challenges. Point to ponder... so how do I make the most of these situations so they can work for me instead of against me. Working for me in the sense that the process makes me a better person! Ever since I came over to West Malaysia I have been mistaken as a Chinese person by not only the Chinese people who would speak to me in Chinese whenever I enter a restaurant, coffee shop or even the salesgirl in the supermarket but by practically everyone that I happen to come in contact with. But the moment I open my mouth to speak either in Malay or English they cannot place me into which race, Malay or Chinese. In the beginning I use to be quite annoyed and feel offended but as the years goes by I began to appreciate the uniqueness of who I am and I'm learning to be true to who I am despite of having to 'adapt' the cultural setting of where I'm at currently. Yet, as I ponder on who I really am as a person, again I'm struck by the uniqueness of who I have become. Ironically, I'm a child of a generation that is so far removed from my original culture. It's both a sad and happy thing, though. Sad, because I have no real sense of my cultural heritage like its arts, music and dances, language and oral history. I have adopted and become adapted to a second culture...a global culture where I have more knowledge of American and European history than my own, grew up learning alphabets and numbers and English words from Sesame Street, yes, I grew up with Bert and Ernie. Perhaps watched too much TV for my own good, so much so that even in my teen years I idolized Hollywood golden stars like Doris Day, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Jerry Lewis...just to name a few. And because of this even up to today the culture I have grown with is so global that English is actually my mother tongue and that tend to annoy my parents slightly when I talk to them with my 'corrupted' language of sort, mixing whatever knowledge of my original dialect I have left with English or Malay words. Happy, because I see God's redemptive work in it as I feel I'm in a more relevant position especially in my calling of serving a much globalized generation. I do not think like a Kayan (the name of my tiny, almost extinct tribe) in terms of its cultural context and inclinations but I feel more freedom to think like Christ. I have never been influenced by any cultural trappings like some of my friends that grew up in the more confined cultural environment but I'm greatly influenced by the Christ culture that I have grown into the last 25 years of my life as a follower of Christ. My parents used to be quite conservative in terms of all these cultural issues but I think what we children have become has somehow rubbed on them. My brother's wife is of another tribe which about merely 50 years ago might not have been acceptable but people are embracing this 'integration' of races and cultures more readily today. And I observed that one of the reason for the near 'extinction' of my tribe is due to cross cultural marriages. After making a search on the Net, there is approximately 5,000 Kayans left in the entire world but I would think that there is a rising generation of mixed blooded Kayans! I know some of my friends and relatives have married Indians, Chinese, Caucasians and other tribes. But I personally think that this is quite a good thing, perhaps a foretaste of how heaven would be, no more boundaries of races but one people under God! Point to ponder...how does all these makes me a better person. I think it does in two important ways. One, it reminds me very strongly that though I don't have a family history that goes back as far as thousand years like the Chinese people for example, yet my real history is integrated in the humanity of Christ that goes back to Adam's time. So, that's where my real roots are and it is even more so true with the relationship I'm privileged to have with my Creator God in Christ Jesus! And that's where lies my true identity! Second, it helps me to be all embracing and accepting to others in terms of cultures and be able to be incarnational in reaching out with the love of God to others outside the peripheral of my own so called culture and to appreciate the beautiful aspects of the other person's culture. This is why I think I am able to survive quite well outside the context of my original culture. Its God who sustains and God who transform one to think more like Him. So, thanks my Father for making me who I am and giving me the grace to appreciate your wonderful handiwork!